Cackle
by lovely rubber boots
Summary: A cackle. Her laugh is like a cackle. It pierces the air ungracefully. It jabs at sounds with a rusty sword, challenging everyone around to both close their ears to the vile sound while opening them as well, bracing themselves for its strange melody.


**Cackle**

**by: Lovelyrubberboots**

**Disclaimer: if you recognize it I don't own it.****.**

**Thank you in Advance for READING and REVEIWING. 3**

**Oh my. I don't even know where the idea for this came.**

* * *

A cackle. Her laugh is like a cackle. It pierces the air, ungracefully. It jabs at sounds with a rusty sword, challenging everyone around to both close their ears to the vile sound while opening them as well, bracing themselves for its strange melody. If it weren't so filled with joy, he might think she was doing something evil, like boiling first years alive. Her laugh gives witches and wizards everywhere a bad name. If a muggle heard her laugh, he's sure they'd realize right then and there she was a witch. But he kind of likes it. The cackle feels like home, like safety. And now, the cackle feels like superiority. He's superior to all the other people in the house who will go home a few months from now and try to explain her laugh to their parents. It's taken him four years, but now he can finally explain to his parents what her laugh is like.

The first time he heard her laugh was in his first year, at the welcoming feast. He'd sat next to her after being sorted into Slytherin; at first he hadn't known who she was, but when Rose Weasley was sorted into Gryffindor, a fellow housemate had jabbed the girl in the ribs and made a joke about her, Lucy, being the only Weasley in Slytherin still. And then, Lucy had laughed. Or, as he know knew, cackled. The laugh wasn't loud, but it made his ears ring, in the worst and best way possible. At Christmas Holiday he tells his parents all about the people in his house, trying to describe the laugh to them. He even tries to imitate it. Their house elf thinks he is choking.

It took until the end of his second year for him to grow used to the sound of her laughing. After she takes her OWL exams, Lucy is laughing more than he's ever seen her laugh. All of the fifth years are laughing. It's a release of nervous energy and a product of their exhaustion. After listening to her laugh for almost three hours straight he thinks, finally he might be able to describe her laugh to his parents – horselike is the word he chooses. But when he gets home it just doesn't seem like the right word.

His third year is spent, for the most part, ignoring Lucy. He has other Weasleys on the mind. He has new classes on his mind. In fact, looking back, he isn't entirely sure how he managed to go for the first half of the year without hearing her laugh. Someone suggests that perhaps he's become immune. But sure enough, one Hogsmeade visit, when he is trying to eavesdrop on Rose and her friends, he hears a very familiar laugh. It's Lucy. She's joined Rose's table for a moment to speak to her dear cousin about some Weasley family matter. When Lucy leaves, she blows his cover. He tells him hi, tells a joke and laughs at it, causing Rose and her friends to peer over into his booth. Their conversation from then on is much quieter and, he guesses, censored. Rose ignores his for the rest of the year and he blames Lucy's laugh.

When his fourth year rolls around he is practically ready to start and Anti-Lucy-Laughing club, but he know it'd be of no use. He talks about it with some friends on the train. They agree that as annoying as it is they kind of like it, and even if they didn't, a friend points out, Lucy has been made Head Girl. It's not wise to provoke the Head Girl, even if she is a member of your house. He hears her laugh a number of times that year, before he figures out what her laugh is. When sneaking around the castle he always does it on nights when Lucy's patrolling. She walks with the Head Boy every night, and her laughter echoes down the halls. If you can avoid her laugh you can avoid detection. It is on one of those nights that he realizes what her laugh is like. It causes him to stop, in a daze, a moment of glory, when he realizes that her laugh is really a cackle. A huge smile of his face, he doesn't notice her cackle and the footsteps getting louder and closer to him.

"Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy!" she says, then cackles, "Don't tell me why you're smiling, I'm trying to stay out of my cousin's business!" Again, she cackles at her own joke. They Head Boy joins in as well. Little does she know that, for once, the smile has little to do with her cousin and everything to do with her laugh (and who, he wonders, has ever smiled at her laugh of all things?) "Get back to the common room, detention with someone soon. Twenty-five points from Slytherin," she says and cackles again. The cackle sums everything up. It's ironic, it's cruel but it's also happy and loud. Scorpius doesn't even bother trying to sneak away after getting caught. He heads back to the common room, cackles echoing in his head.

**

* * *

**

**Love you. thanks for reveiwing. **


End file.
